Most businesses know that they need to change the way they operate in order to achieve maximum profit and/or revenue growth, however most fail to actually do it.
Most Business Managers know that they need a plan to guide their development process but most fail to develop one despite the fact that there are literally thousands of guides, training programs and advisers available to assist in this development process. WHY?
I believe that one of the primary reasons is that traditional planning processes fail to take advantage of your CHANGE POTENTIAL, which is your ability to implement change in your business and life.
What factors do you need to address if you are wanting to make a change? These are the individual elements of your change potential.
How do you maximise your change potential?
Your ability to change will be influenced by three things. Your level of dissatisfaction or motivation, your Vision for the future and the quality of your plan for achieving your Vision. The combination of these 3 simple things is what drives people to change.
We have developed a simple formula to measure your change potential. There are 4 things you need to do:
- You need to know how the change formula works.
- You need to know how to create Dissatisfaction (motivation).
- You need to know how to create Vision; and
- You have to be skilled in developing a Plan that works.
If you can maximise your performance in Dissatisfaction, Vision and Plan, you can maximise your change potential.
Dissatisfaction
Pain is a great motivator in the short term. If you can get your organisation to be dissatisfied with, or motivated by, their current performance, it will create an energy you can use. If you are not dissatisfied with your present situation or are too comfortable, it will be hard to find the motivation or reason to change.
If you had to rate the level of dissatisfaction or motivation in your organisation out of ten what would it be?
A score of 0 would indicate total happiness (low motivation), 5 generally satisfied (average motivation) and 10, total dissatisfaction (highly motivated). If you are extremely dissatisfied then you are most probably highly motivated. If you are highly motivated score yourself higher on the scale.
Vision
In a similar way, rate the level of vision in your Business. Vision is a critical element because it provides a picture of what will be achieved.
Score yourself from 0 to 10 on the quality of Vision in your business.
If you have a well articulated Vision that you have documented and that you can draw a picture of, then rate yourself higher on the scale. Rate yourself higher the longer the time frame covered by your Vision. If you have never really thought about where you want to be in the future and don’t have a clear Vision, then give yourself a low score closer to zero.
Plan
How would you rate the level of commitment, involvement and belief in your business plan? Most businesses don’t score well in this element.
Again use the 0 to 10 score. If you have a well documented plan for achieving your Vision with strategies, priorities, actions, timings and responsibilities then score yourself near the upper end of the scale. If you have a very rough plan stored in your head then score yourself towards the lower end.
Calculate your Change Potential
Once you have scored each item, multiply the scores together to get a total value for your change potential. D x V x P = Change Potential. What is the score for your Business or for you as an individual?
Example
Formula D x V x P = Change Potential
Maximum = 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000
Your Score ___ x ___ x ___.= ____
What scores do you think the best performing businesses (or individuals) would have? Typically they are highly motivated, have a very strong sense of Vision and have great plans. Scores in these businesses are usually in the vicinity of 10, 8 and 8 for D.V and P , respectively, which gives them a total score of 640 out of 1000 (10 x 10 x 10) or they are using 64% of their change potential.
How do you compare to the better performing business?
How can you improve your score?
In which area (D,V or P) did you have the lowest score? What can you do to improve this score? What can you do to improve your score in the other areas? Set up some action plans.
Don’t feel discouraged if you scored yourself at the bottom of the range as this means that you have a lot of unused potential. In my experience, most business managers score between 10% and 30% using this methodology. To maximise your change potential, I believe that you need to lift your score to greater than 50%.
But what if I don’t want to change?
“Change is inevitable you can drink it as soup now or take it as an enema later! Either way, you will change! “Anon.
In other words, you can embrace change now or have it forced upon you later but there is no escaping it. This is a quote from a good friend of mine (who shall remain nameless) who is a gifted commentator on world events.
Unfortunately, in today’s fast moving business environment avoiding change just isn’t possible. All businesses change even if they don’t know it. Changes in customer expectations, communications technologies, legislation, banking and finance all occur without us even being aware of it! Therefore not changing just isn’t an option!
The key is to be aware of the changing environment and to adjust your plans to include appropriate elements of change. A good planning process will include a process for prioritising the implementation of your plan which will filter out unnecessary changes and include essential developments.
